A weekend of canning...

I found it relaxing this weekend to stand in front of the sink like generations before me did. Looking out over a yard with dying grass and pears ripening on the tree, the sounds of children playing while I slipped the peels from scalded tomatoes to make a family recipe which has no set recipe but differs from year to year based on the sweetness or tartness of the fruit.
DH would like it if I altered the sweet chili sauce recipe to be more of a spicy chili sauce instead of tomato chutney (using the chutney term as “jam for meat”). As it is though, it reminds me of Grandma’s pink kitchen and the times we would spoon it over baked potatoes. She was so excited that she could cook them in the microwave instead of having to bake them on her state of the art (when she bought it) push button range/stove. I love her range. It has buttons on the wall instead of knobs for the burners. It’s from that same age that gave us the push button automatic transmission.
I’m so glad that I took the time as a young married woman to go to my grandmothers and learn how to put up fruit, to make sweet chili sauce, and to make mustard pickles. Some things just don’t take right coming out of a can if they’re even made commercially.

Anyway, I have 48 pint jars of sweet chili sauce, 6 pint jars of salsa, and a case and a half of tomatoes left to do, along with finishing my Communications project and taking my final for the same class.